Monique Lhuillier is celebrating 25 years of flirty, feminine fashions by going back to the future.
For her fall 2022 collection, she opened her archives and found the inspiration to create a collection that is at once delicate and glamorous, from mermaid gowns in seafoam that hug the figure, frothing about the neckline, sleeves and bottom, to stark, one-shoulder columnar creations with white designs snaking across a black backdrop.
It’s all in a day’s show-stopping work for a designer who is as comfortable on the white wedding carpet as she is on the red one. While Lhuillier’s creations have been worn by former first ladies Michelle Obama and Melania Trump, Jessica Alba, Halle Berry, Regina King, Bedford’s Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez, Demi Lovato, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry, Emma Stone and Taylor Swift, she is well-remembered for having designed Britney Spears’ and Resse Witherspoon’s wedding dresses.
Indeed it was a wedding that launched the career of the Filipina-American designer, who was born in the Philippines to a French-Filipino businessman and his socialite-model wife and grew up in Cebu City, where she studied at Saint Theresa’s College before going on to the Chateau Mont-Choisi finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland. At the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles, she met her future husband, Tom Bugbee – and her future career.
“I started the search for a wedding dress, but that proved to be a little challenging,” she told Forbes magazine. “It was hard to find wedding dresses that were beautiful but contemporary, so I just started making one.”
Kudos in the form of business cards convinced Lhuiller that she could make the gowns for others. She began small with bridal exclusively for four years, keeping it all in the family. (Her parents’ basement was her atelier; her MBA husband, her CEO.) LA stylists took note.
“(They) would say to me ‘if you’ve made this in color, I would love to put this on the red carpet.’ It made me wonder. Why am I just dressing a woman for the most important day of her life, when I could be there for all the most important days of her life?”
Lhuillier has set red-carpet records, once having eight looks at one Golden Globes event. And she has been honored by both her countries, with membership in the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the Philippines’ Presidential Medal of Merit and inclusion in that nation’s “Living Legends: World Renowned Filipinos” postage collection, along with fellow designer Josie Natori and singer-actress Lea Salonga (“Miss Saigon,” “Les Misèrables”). Her fashion houses span sea to shining sea, LA and New York.
And her collections cut a wide swath – couture, ready to wear, linens, tableware, stationery, fragrance, clothes for children and teens, furniture and jewelry.
Lhuillier’s offerings, it would seem, are as voluptuously voluminous as the ball gown of cascading tulle in her signature blush pink that graces the cover of the new Rizzoli retrospective on her 25 years in fashion.
We’re looking forward to 25 more.
Tags: Monique Lhuillier, Tom Bugbee, Michelle Obama, Melania Trump, Jessica Alba, Halle Berry, Regina King, Bedford’s Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez, Demi Lovato, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry, Emma Stone, Taylor Swift, Reese Witherspoon, Britney Spears, Josie Natori, Lea Salonga, Rizzoli, Council of Fashion Designers of America, the Philippines, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising